The first step is to understand what it means when a number has an exponent. The “power” of a number indicates how many times the base would be multiplied by itself to reach the correct value.
The second step is to write the number in the base-exponent form, and lastly calculate what the final result would be. Consider the example of 2 to the power of 4: in exponent form that would be
So re-applying these steps to our particular problem, we first convert our word problem to a base-exponent form of:
To simplify this, all that is needed is to multiply it out:
97 x 97 x 97 x 97 x ... (for a total of 99 times) = 49023204046810063052865617754531993076026071520903088968920741451572890340395967569520426628951284340118127138453851707836951742337890127232804456106417984709109735388024795899433618241972372230433
Therefore, 97 to the power of 99 is 49023204046810063052865617754531993076026071520903088968920741451572890340395967569520426628951284340118127138453851707836951742337890127232804456106417984709109735388024795899433618241972372230433.